Former F1 driver Max Chilton has told talkSPORT that Max Verstappen may already have his second world title in the bag due to Ferrari’s reliability issues.
Reigning champion Verstappen currently leads title rival Charles Leclerc by 49 points, representing a gigantic 95 point swing between the two since the Australian Grand Prix.
The childhood rivals are seen by many as the only title contenders this season, and have both experienced misfortune with two retirements each.
However, the Red Bull driver has been on the podium in his other seven races this season, winning six of them to assail to a huge lead.
A combination of reliability and questionable strategy have seen Leclerc’s challenge fade away in recent races, and former Marussia F1 driver Chilton feels it might already be too late to claw the points difference back.
Asked if he agrees with pundits who say the title race is over, Chilton said: “When I say unfortunately, it’s not because I don’t want him to win, but I think they’re probably correct.
“At the start of the year we all thought it was going to be Ferrari and Leclerc but the ratio of how they keep falling off and having issues is not how you win a championship.
“There’s plenty more races for them to turn it around but Red Bull seem fairly consistent, they do have a few reliability issues so you never know at the moment, but if I was a betting man, at the moment it would probably be Max.”
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Chilton debuted in F1 in 2013 and since then has seen an emergence of British talent take over the sport since he moved onto IndyCar and endurance racing.
Lando Norris and George Russell are now competing at the front of the grid and have become global superstars, and Chilton feels Netflix series Drive to Survive has been a huge part of their growth.
“It’s great to see British youth coming through, it doesn’t make me feel any younger that’s for sure,” he said.
“I was 21 in my first Grand Prix in Melbourne but they just seem to be getting younger and younger, but they’re great guys and I think Netflix has transformed motorsport, not just Formula 1.
“Naturally if you get people into Formula 1, we’ve all heard people talking about it who aren’t usually into motorsport, they’ll then go, ah look at that that rallycross, or rally or Le Mans or IndyCar, it all spreads out so the whole of motorsport has gained because of the success of it.
“IndyCar’s definitely got bigger since Fernado [Alonso] came over in 2017 to do the Indy 500 and also in the UK it’s on the Sky Sports F1 channel, it’s opened it up to a greater audience which is great for everyone and British motorsport has always been world leading and it’s great to continue.”
Speaking to talkSPORT at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Chilton was driving a completely different piece of machinery that could well take the automotive industry by storm.
Taking the fastest time of the day during the historic hill climb, Chilton did so in an all-electric car that is astonishingly road legal.
He said: “It’s called the McMurtry Speirling, it’s an all-electric rear wheel drive fan powered car, it creates its downforce through a fan and sucks itself to the floor unlike a normal race car that creates its downforce through the body.
“Ours creates virtually no drag it’s amazingly fast, it’s single gear, you put it in drive and it just keeps pulling all the way up to 200mph, it doesn’t slow off like a normal car does at the top of the rev range, it’s an animal to drive and that was my first ever time pushing up it here so there’s loads and loads more time left in it.
“The DVLA have just approved it for the road so you can actually drive to a race track and then drive something which is as fast as an LMP1 car, it’s pretty ridiculous, it’s about 22-25 seconds a lap quicker around Silverstone than any other road car and you can drive it to the track.”
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